Morning Walk Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
December 21, 1973, Los Angeles

Prajapati: His name is Harvey Cox, and he’s at Harvard University, and his books are read by millions of people. As soon as one of his books comes out, everybody looks. So in this new book, his basic thesis is that God is especially interested to the causes of the poor people, and the poor people are much closer to God than anyone else.

Prabhupada: Another rascal.

Prajapati: I was wondering if Your Divine Grace would like to comment on such a thesis.

Prabhupada: He is a rascal.

Karandhara: Another very prominent… He’s a psychiatrist and a theologian. His name is Menninger. So about ten years ago he wrote a book that the conception of sin and evil was unnecessary, and one should give up considering that some things are sins. Now he just wrote a book saying that he was wrong, that since he has promoted this theory everyone is degrading, and that the theory of sin and evil should be maintained to keep the people in good order.

Prabhupada: So these rascals will change every year their theology. So what is the value of their words? Childish. [break] …changes, he is a rascal. That is our… We say, “Krsna the Supreme.” We never change it. And “Surrender is the only process.” We shall never change it. In any circumstance we will not change it. That is the difference. And these rascals will change every year their opinion. They are rascals. [break] …They are rascals. [break] Krsna said that “I am the Supreme.” So Arjuna accepted, the Supreme. All the acaryas accepted the Supreme. Caitanya Mahaprabhu accepted, Supreme. My Guru Maharaja accepted, Supreme. I am accepting, Supreme. I am teaching the same thing. So there is no change. Not that after a few years it will be changed. That never be. That is our position. [break] Changing means material. Anything material is susceptible to change. Like this material body. I am changing my body, but I am the spirit soul. I am not changing. That is the difference. So all these so-called theologicians, they have no idea what is spiritual knowledge. All rascals. They cannot understand what is God. That I have explained. Simply speculating. It will not help. [break] (Hindi) (some Indian people have joined the walk) Now we are talking of one theologician. Some years ago just… Narrate the… Yes.

Prajapati: This basic thesis of the leading theologian in our country… He’s saying that the poor people are closer to God and God is specifically looking on their cause more than anyone else. He’s at Harvard University.

Prabhupada: But the one thing is, who is poor? Admitting. We admit, of course, that God is specially interested with the fallen or degraded. But first thing is that who is fallen? Who is poor? That is to be ascertained.

Guest (1) (Indian man): But there is one more thing. I don’t think God could be so partial that He would…

Prabhupada: No, God cannot be partial.

Guest (1): …that he would look only to the poor. But as there is a saying in Hindi that (Hindi) So they say, “When a man is poor, and he is miserable, then he remembers more God.”

Prabhupada: No, no, no. Not necessarily. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita. Catur-vidha bhajante mam janah sukrtino ’rjuna, arto artharthi. When one is distressed he remembers God, if he is pious. If he is not pious…

Guest (1): Then he won’t remember. Then he will curse him. Then he will curse.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Guest (1): That is correct. But even a pious man in prosperity, he doesn’t think of God so much.

Prabhupada: If he is pious, then in his distress, he will remember God.

Guest (1): Yes, but a pious man in his prosperity sometimes forgets, as Sugriva had the tendency to forget and he had to be reminded.

Prabhupada: No, that is very rarely. Sugriva forgot. Anyway, there is chance of such thing because the distressed man, although he is pious, as soon as his distress is moved, then he forgets. There is such chance. Therefore arto artharthi jnani jijnasuh. Four classes of men. So arto artharthi. They, after benefiting by the grace of God, they may forget. But those who are jnani, they will not forget. That is the difference. So these theologicians, they are changing their opinion. What is that, Karandhara, you said?

Karandhara: Well, another very prominent psychiatrist and theologian, about ten years ago he wrote a very famous book wherein he said that people should give up the idea of evil and sin because it is just an inhibition on the mind. But now he just wrote another book saying that he was wrong, and since people have given up the idea of sin and evil, the whole world has degraded to such a bad state that now, even though there may not be a God, they should still believe in evil just to keep things in order.

Prabhupada: Then if there is no God, then who will judge what is evil and what is right? If there is no God? People are abiding the law, “Keep to the right, keep to the left,” because they know, “Behind this order, there is government.” If he does not keep the arrangement, then he will be punished. So as soon as you accept the principles of bad and good, then you have to accept God. Now, this kind of theologician, some years ago his opinion was something, and now his opinion is different.

Guest (1): I think they keep on changing their opinion according to the world condition…

Prabhupada: So that is not perfect.

Guest (1): And when they see that the conditions and the things in the world as they are, they don’t fit in with their theories, then they change their theories.

Prabhupada: No. So they are opportunists. They are not learned scholar. Our proposition is that five thousand years ago Krsna taught that “I am the Supreme.” So Arjuna accepted, param brahma, param dhama: [Bg. 10.12] “Yes, You are Supreme.” Then all the acaryas later on, Ramanujacarya, Madhvacarya, even Sankaracarya, all accepted. “Yes,” krsnas tu bhagavan svayam. Then after that, acarya system, Lord Caitanya accepted, “Yes, Krsna is the Supreme Lord.” So after Caitanya, five hundred years, all the acaryas, they are accepting. So we are accepting or teaching the same thing. No change, no change. Nityah sasvato ’yam. If there is change, that is not nitya, that is not sasvata. That is circumstantial. That is material.

Guest (1): Yes. That is the difference between man-made law and… Nitya and sasvata.

Prabhupada: Yes. I was coming here at six, but I caught cold. Therefore I have changed the time.

Guest (1): Yes, six is a bit too early.

Prabhupada: Yes, too early. Hare Krsna. [break] …loving propensity, we want to love somebody, up to the dog, but we are not getting satisfaction because the love is placed in wrong place. But if you love Krsna, then everything will be all right. [break]. If you pour water on the root, it reaches to all the branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, everything. [break] (Hindi).

Guest (1): Disneyland, all sorts of shows and devices for children.

Prabhupada: So children’s father also go there?

Guest (1): [break] She is also doing that japa. And while this mala, doing mala, and doing the japa, the mind doesn’t remain fixed in God. You know, it wanders about. So what is the way of fixing the mind?

Prabhupada: To hear. “Hare Krsna.” Chant and hear.

Guest (1): Speak loudly.

Guest (2) (Indian lady): Speak loudly but still the mind goes away here and there.

Prabhupada: Then that is called… abhyasa-yoga-yuktena cetasa nanya-gamina [Bg. 8.8]. That you have to practice. (Hindi) We have got a sankhya, that “You must perform so many times.” It doesn’t matter what is… Then gradually, (Hindi). This is the only…

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha [Adi 17.21]

(Hindi) So we have to follow, and actually it is becoming effective.

Guest (2): I think it takes many births to have the effect.

Prabhupada: No, you can have immediately, provided you follow the rules and regulations. That’s all. Not many births, immediately. Tat-ksanat. Susrusubhis tat-ksanat. In the Bhagavata it is said. Isvarah sadyo hrdy avarudhyate susrusubhis tat-ksanat. The tat-ksanat means immediately. But one must very eager. That’s all. That is the only qualification. Otherwise, Sukadeva Gosvami would not… Vyasadeva would not have used this word, tat-ksanat, immediately. I think that hill is Hollywood?

Jayatirtha: Beverly Hills, Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: That is Beverly Hills.

Karandhara: No, that is Hollywood Hills.

Prabhupada: Yes. (Hindi)

Guest (1): (Hindi)

Jayatirtha: If one isn’t eager, how can he become eager, Srila Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: By association. By association. Therefore this society. We are giving chance. You were not eager four years ago. Now why you are eager? You come to the Society and become eager, automatically. Satam prasangan mama virya-samvido bhavanti hrt-karna-rasayanah kathah. By sat-sanga, it becomes very pleasing to the ear and to the heart. And if you little try, then it becomes successful. But if it is so-called sat-sanga, professional, hired Bhagavata-reader, then it will… Thousand, thousand years will no, not effect.

Guest (1): Then it is merchandising.

Prabhupada: Merchandising. That is the… (Hindi) Each verse of Bhagavata is volumes of philosophy, but neither they know it, neither they explain it. The Bhagavata-patha means rasa-lila. That’s all.

Guest (1): Yes. that is what Bhagavata has been…

Prabhupada: What they will understand, rasa-lila?

Guest (1): It has been misrepresented.

Prabhupada: Misrepresented. They will think that it is ordinary, just like young boy, young girls, they mix together.

Guest (1): And that rasa-lila is also not taken in that moral sense. It is more of a sex exploitation. That is how they…

Prabhupada: No. Why one should go to the rasa-lila? It is in the Tenth Canto. And in the thirty-fifth chapter. So what is the purpose?

Guest (1): No. That is being misrepresented. That has also been taken as an enjoyment.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Guest (1): It has been taken more as sense gratification.

Prabhupada: Yes. Harer nama harer nama harer nama eva kevalam [Adi 17.21] So Karandhara Prabhu, this time is nice.

Karandhara: Yes, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: We get full sunshine. Yes.

Guest (1): Prabhupada, what is the meaning of the word Srila?

Prabhupada: Srila is… just like we say “Sri” to the ordinary person. And Srila to very respectable person.

Guest (1): La.

Prabhupada: La, yes. Sri means beauty, and la means lila. So “one who is invested with both beauty and the power to understand the lila of Krsna.” [break] Asoka’s mother came to see me in Bombay.

Guest (2): Yes, I have asked her. First I came, then I told her.

Prabhupada: Yes, that lady came to see me. Very nice lady.

Guest (1): Asoka’s mother, she has fixed up two or three programs in her school. Girl’s school.

Prabhupada: Yes. That (Hindi)

Giriraja: She showed the series of slides of Prahlada Maharaja.

Prabhupada: Oh. There in the school?

Giriraja: Yes. The children enjoyed it very much.

Prabhupada: In Hawaii one seven year old boy… [break]

Prajapati: The children here also, Prabhupada. They love that book so… [break]

Giriraja: Yes, I know him.

Prabhupada: What is his name?

Giriraja: Surajman.

Prabhupada: Surajman. He is your family?

Guest (1): No, Birla’s family. They are relatives… [break]

Prabhupada: …son and daughter-in-law.

Guest (1): Surajman’s son?

Prabhupada: Not here. In London. [break] …nephew of Vamana(?).

Guest (1): Didi Birla’s sister’s son. That is Candra (indistinct). He is related to (indistinct).

Prabhupada: Is that the man who gave us a car? He is Candrakant?

Guest (1): Candrakant. You were taking their house?

Giriraja: Yes. Near Mahatma Gandhi Road.

Guest (1): Yes, that is Candrakant. In Calcutta, no?

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] Yes, there is also my student. [break] Now the government is so irresponsible. Just like in Nairobi, I was refused permission. You see. We spent so much money, and they did not inform before. And when I was on the airport… That also, no written order. They said, “From higher authorities it is the order that you cannot enter.” Just see. Kenya. So at the present moment we have got many enemies of this movement. (Hindi) “You are converting these European and American into brahmana. How they can become brahmana without taking birth as brahmana?” (Hindi)

Guest (1): You have done quite a lot. [break]

Prabhupada: Yes. Here also they go to parties. Where they go here?

Jayatirtha: To downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Prabhupada: In New York, everywhere, every town, our men go and chant Hare Krsna and sells books. That’s it. [break] …order. Yare dekha tare kaha krsna-upadesa [Cc. Madhya 7.128]. Whomever you meet, you just deliver the instruction of Krsna to him. That’s all. This is Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission. Yare dekha tare kaha krsna-upadesa [Cc. Madhya 7.128]. [break] (Hindi) They have got a cultural department, but not for helping this. And then… (Hindi) This is my position. Just see. (Hindi) That is the sastric injunction. Kirtana means about Visnu. But these Ramakrishna men will say, “Why not Kali?”

Guest (1): No, no, no, they never say that.

Prabhupada: But they say that.

Guest (1): No sir. I am attending their lectures, classes, and discussing with them.

Prabhupada: Vivekananda’s philosophy is yata mata tata patha: “Whatever you have got, your opinion, that is all right.” They organize Kali-kirtana in competition to…

Guest (1): Yes, in their mandira. In the mandira. In the mandira their kirtana is Kali-kirtana.

Prabhupada: But that is not recommended in the sastra. Sastra is: sravanam kirtanam visnoh [SB 7.5.23].

Guest (1): You are right, but then when it comes to… That was why it was outdoor kirtana. And they said if they come, they can be our guests and they called the kirtana out to do what they like. He said, “So that is how…”

Prabhupada: Which car? No, it is my auto? [break]

Jagajjivana: We don’t have that many Spanish books.

Prabhupada: English books.

Jagajjivana: A small fair. Thousands of people go to this flower festival in the mountains, and we went in, and they let us in and we chanted and hundreds of people came to chant. And then the officials came to stop us.

Prabhupada: Why?

Jagajjivana: Because too many people were coming to hear the chanting. So then…

Prabhupada: They did not like it?

Jagajjivana: No, they did not like it, the officials. So then we started to leave, thinking, “Well, rather than cause any trouble, we better leave.” So then the people, they wouldn’t let us leave. So then the leaders there, they were forced to put us on stage. And so we chanted on stage with big microphones and thousands of people came to listen, and then we taught them how to chant Nitai- Gauranga, and they all chanted. Nitai, Nitai, Gauranga, Gauranga. It was very amazing. And then we distributed books and we lectured. [break] Their Lordships Gaura-Nitai have come because of that chanting, Deities. [break]

Prabhupada: If the chanter is sincere.

Jagajjivana: In the Dominican Republic which is an island near us, the chanting is so powerful, it draws so many people, that the government won’t let us in to the country because it is so powerful. We have devotees there now, though. We had to send a devotee incognito, in disguise, to get residence there. Now he’s…

Prabhupada: Oh, they will not give place?

Jagajjivana: They didn’t let us in the country, but we have devotees there now. [break] We had an article in a magazine recently. I can show it to you later.

Prabhupada: What does he say?

Jagajjivana: Well, it’s about that we weren’t allowed into the Dominican Republic and they were stopping us from coming in, and that one million people buy our books and that millions of people buy our books and many people…

Prabhupada: Spanish book?

Jagajjivana: All types of books. Had some nice pictures. In the article there is a picture of us giving books to the governor of Puerto Rico. [break]

Prabhupada: So we have got books in Spanish now? Which book?

Jagajjivana: We have the…

Prabhupada: Isopanisad.

Jagajjivana: Yeah, we haven’t gotten that yet, though. There is the Perfection of Yoga, Topmost Yoga, and the Back to Godhead.

Hrdayananda: Easy Journey to Other Planets.

Jagajjivana: Yeah, but I don’t have that. I have some copies but not a lot.

Hrdayananda: Also On Chanting.

Jagajjivana: Yeah, there is a chapter of Bhagavad-gita, Second chapter is done. It hasn’t been distributed yet until February. We are two blocks away from a college. It has 32,000 students, and we go there every day and chant and the Communists come and we start preaching to them.

Prabhupada: Communists? Students are under Communistic? What the Communists preaches? There is no God?

Jagajjivana: Yes. And that in this life you can become perfect. There can be a perfect man without Krsna.

Prabhupada: Ah, so who has become that perfect man? Amongst your Communists? The Stalin is considered the greatest criminal in the world, in the history, Stalin. So how he is perfect man? If he is the greatest criminal?

Jagajjivana: [break] Mostly Spanish countries. [break] Another town in Puerto Rico we have a center there also.

Prabhupada: Where it is?

Jagajjivana: That is on the other side of the island, on Puerto Rico.

Prabhupada: Rupanuga Maharaja went there?

Jagajjivana: Yes. And…

Prabhupada: He can speak in Spanish?

Jagajjivana: No. We have a translator. He speaks and someone translates. And there is a school there with 25,000 students. Scientist students. [break] …all photographs of the chanting to show how people are taking this.

Prabhupada: Taking part. That’s nice.

Jagajjivana: So they will see the potency of Krsna consciousness. [break] …many devotees. Sixty, seventy devotees. And Visnujana Maharaja was there with Radha-Damodara. He is doing very nicely. And then I stopped in Atlanta to see Balavanta Prabhu, and he has got a big office now.

Prabhupada: Election?

Jagajjivana: Yes. He is thinking of running for Congress next. [break] And that was very nice.

Prabhupada: Students are doing very nice?

Jagajjivana: Oh yes. I was there before when Amarendra ran for mayor in Dallas. I helped him with that. And I got a chance to associate with the children there. And they have made so much advancement since last I was there.

Prabhupada: They are now chanting slokas very nice?

Jagajjivana: Yes. Dayananda Prabhu is doing very well. And Hiranyagarbha Prabhu is teaching them Sanskrit and English. But mostly they like kirtana. They become very ecstatic during kirtana.

Prabhupada: That is real business.

Jagajjivana: So Mohananda was very good at kirtana. He was kirtana man. Expert. (end)